I was quite interested to see other allied nations view on the outcome of the war if Germany had managed to invade Britain.

My inspiration is the book 'Fatherland' which sees Germany's occupation of Britain much like France's. Also forcing the USA to abandon the support of 'free' Europe and concentrate on the rising Japanese threat.

If we are talking about the successful destruction of the RAF, there is no doubt the Germans would be able to launch an invasion party. However, they would have faced significant obstacles. Knowing we were close to losing air superiority I grant that the non submarine part of the grand British Navy would have headed for the USA. I have seen a few previous posts that seem to indicate a lot of Britain's allies in the USA think that an invasion would have led to a compliant Britain.

I beg to differ, by 1938 the threat of invasion was so apparent immediate plans were drawn up for a 'home guard'. If you have ever seen the British comedy 'Dads Army' this is what this is about. But the reality is this was a nationwide, highly trained subversive force trained in guerrilla warfare. By 1940 some 25,000 strong. Have no doubt the Germans knew that 'we will fight them on the beaches' meant exactly that, and then a subversive population that would make the French resistance look like tanks v kids catapults. No disrespect there, we were prepared, the French were not.

I say this, we would have made occupation of Britain so unpalatable Hitler would have quickly withdrawn. Especially if he really wanted the East. Lets not forget, Hitler admired Britain. Wanted its global standing, and thought we'd stand by him. Invasion or not - he needed everything in his arsenal for the war in the east. Making the invasion of Britain, if successful initially, ultimately unsustainable. Discuss

The strength of the German Army in WW2 was in it's tactics. The German's created a strategy in which they would focus all their strength into one force, and then attack a single objective. Their force would overwhelm their opponents, and the force would move on to the next objective. This means that, no matter how strong British defenses were, they would have to cover the whole of their coast, leaving them vulnerable to just the attack the German's used.

It is true that a German invasion of Britain would have been costly, but control over Britain meant control over Western Europe, which in turn meant that a counter-invasion would have no place to start. The conquest of Britain would have left the German's to worry only about the USSR to the east and the threat of the American's, whose only large bases were far away from Nazi territory. If Germany had conquered England, the war could have been theirs.

Britain was unprepared for a German invasion because of the loss of the British Expansionary Force in France. The British Army lost nearly 70,000 men. But what was more important than these deaths was the fact that the BEF had lost an enormous amount of artillery. Tanks and aircraft had been destroyed and 1 in eight men of the BEF had been captured.

Britain was the last part of Western Europe left for the Germans to conquer after the surrender of France. In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) was unable to defeat the RAF. However, after the battle, Britain was left with 400 serviceable aircraft while the Germans were left with 700. Perhaps if they had persisted, the RAF could have been destroyed, making the task of invading Britain much easier. The destruction of the RAF was the prerequisite for a successful invasion of Britain.